Opinion

'I will never forget the night the laws kicked in'

By Mark Pigott

December 4, 2018 — 12.15am

My family owned and managed the Taylor Square Newsagency on Oxford Street for 84 years. It was one of the best known businesses in the eastern suburbs and the City of Sydney.

We were as famous for our contribution to the local community fabric as we were for trading 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Our business meant as much to Darlinghurst as it did for us as a family. That was at least until we were forced to close our doors just 18 months after the introduction ofthe lockout laws.

Until then, our doors were always open. On any given night, 3am was a busy time for us and for Darlinghurst. It was often around this time that we observed and enjoyed the eclectic mix of our clientele.

Mark Pigott outside the Taylor Square newsagent which has closed down due to lockout laws.Credit:Louise Kennerley

We served everybody from actors and singers, to politicians and comedians, to television and radio personalities, journalists and hospitality workers, famous chefs among them. Every profession from within the public service also rotated through our newsagency. It was a true cross roads of Sydney. It never deserved to be bulldozed by these laws.

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I will never forget the night the laws kicked in, March 1, 2014 – Mardi Gras night and Darlinghurst’s night to shine. With close to half a million people on the streets of inner Sydney that night, at 1.30am the laws clicked into operation. As if from nowhere, up sprung the flashing and hissing DMR road signs all over Oxford street. “What's your plan B”, “1.30am Lockout “, “Go Home - Lockout.”

Everyone in Darlinghurst felt the reverberations from day one. There was a near immediate 70 per cent or more drop in foot traffic along Oxford Street. The local business community fell off a cliff by day and, especially, by night. These laws continue to wreak financial and cultural havoc on local trade. Multiple For Lease signs along Oxford Street continue, even today.

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In our case, we sensed what was happening from the first night and watched as these laws cut financial viability from underneath us. Our consistent and reliable turnover, built up over decades across numerous products (hedged to protect the drop in newspaper sales), evaporated before our very eyes as Oxford Street and all of the zones around the city became ghost towns.

At 6pm, Saturday, September 26, 2015 – only 18 months after the laws began – Taylor Square Newsagency closed the door on decades of family history. We lost our business and Sydney lost its best newsagency. Darlinghurst lost a chunk of its soul.

Prior to our closing, we tried to talk sense into those we thought had the power to stop these laws. We served every politician and their staff each night with the next day's papers, so we had ample opportunity.

We tried to use our decades of street-smart to put forward alternatives that wouldn’t have required locking everybody in or out. But what could a third-generation, family business know of Oxford Street? Our political customers chose not to listen. They could not, or would not, look past the political expediency these blunt instrument of laws offered. All of our predictions of dire consequences have now come true.

Protesters march through Sydney streets, in response to the state government's lockout laws in 2016. Credit:Peter Rae

From our decades of experience, the problem element these new laws were attempting to fix was only ever a tiny minority. Instead of using some strong fly spray to get rid of some known pests, the government used an enormous blunt plank of wood that squashed everything and everybody.

Taylor Square Newsagency is only one of hundreds of small businesses that have closed and businesses continue to do so. Hundreds more jobs across multiple sectors of Sydney’s economy have been lost. The NSW state government has offered motherhood statements in support of small business, while giving a free rein to the likes of the casino, which remarkably avoided the map draw and the lockout laws.

Since their implementation, Sydney has never been the same. We have lost our mantle as Australia's premier city to Melbourne while other cities around the world ask what ever happened to us? We have watched our reputation be trashed from a once unassailable position post the Sydney 2000 Olympics.

My family have cried over our losses and Sydney’s. We have visited and sat in Parliament for hours on end at parliamentary hearing committees over multiple visits to Macquarie Street. The lockout laws must go, the damage has far outweighed the benefit of their intended purpose. It is time to repair the damage done, for it will take more than the next five years to restore that which has been lost to Sydney. Some things - like our newsagency - have been lost forever.